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Tell me about death on our
roads
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
It is a pleasure to read about the enforcement of this new “Axle
load policy” announced by Mr. Joe Gadisu, the Transportation
Minister.
It is also a shame to know, after so many accidents caused by
overloaded trucks in Ghana, that the “axle policy,” long and
strongly in force in Burkina Faso is now going to be operative
in the country this late.
That it took the detention of some Ghanaian drivers, on the
Burkina Faso side of the border, for the minister to be aware of
this policy is the point of my shame.
The sight of these huge overloaded, badly maintained trucks on
our roads has not only been embarrassing but also deadly.
However, as always in cases like this, the axle policy
enforcement is better late than never.
Mr Joe Gidisu, who announced this policy said it was in keeping
with ECOWAS regulations. It is a pity he didn’t say it was in
consonance with common sense.
He also said that “steps would be taken to restore the weighing
scales installed at the Tema and Takoradi ports to full
operations as soon as practicable but in the interim the Ghana
Highway Authority will make available portable weigh bridges at
the ports to regulate loading.”
You mean there has been no provision for this critical safety
measure all this time? We don’t have to wait for it then. No
scales at the ports so the police can use their judgment by
eyeballing trucks on the roads, right? No humor intended here.
A truck with freight off balance on its trailer, moaning and
groaning its way on our roads can be easily spotted. Overloaded
truck go very slow uphill and faster down. Sound and sight and
common sense should do for now until we have the full machinery
in place at the ports and midway stations on our roads to do the
job.
In the case of truck owners and operators, sometimes common
sense can be overridden by greed. They think by overloading they
can increase the chance of making more money per trip.
On the contrary, overloading is costly. It diminishes fuel
economy and causes faster brake and tire failure, not to mention
the wear and tear it imposes on the engine and transmission of
the truck.
In reference to the massive load on the truck itself, any
instance of shift in load weight can cause problems for the
driver, the truck and the general public, resulting in huge
economic loss and death.
But come to think of this "axle load policy" I am not sure
whether it will mean the maximum weight allowed, in reference to
road strength and safety of bridges. I am also not certain
whether the policy will have any meaning for the horsepower and
load capacity a particular truck, with or without trailer, can
pull.
A critical step in haulage is matching truck horsepower to the
size of trailer or load it pulls. Very often, this is not
observed, especially with trailer-trucks carrying sea containers
from our ports. Many accidents or breakdowns occur everyday with
this type of haulage because of this neglect.
Ocean freight containers are means for carrying heavy goods
safely, in intermodal fashion, from one point to the other. But
the way we transport them on our roads defeats the built-in
safety measures.
For one, containers are heavy. A 40’ container can carry
approximately 65, 000 lbs of weight which requires that that the
truck head that pulls the container must have the appropriate
horsepower for the job. Often, this requirement is not met.
Also, many of these containers are carried in all manner of
unsuitable tractor-trailers, adding to the danger. The most
dangerous I have seen to date was a 40’ container on a flat bed
truck, slightly bigger than the flat bed itself, without the
mechanism for or adequate contraption to keep the load secure
from shifting or spilling unto the road.
Just recently on the road to Kumasi, on a day when Otumfuor, the
Asantehene, was celebrating his 10th anniversary, with VIPs,
foreign dignitaries and cars pouring in from Accra to Kumasi, a
truck, obviously underpowered and carrying a loaded 40’
container, had an accident coming downhill, resulting in the
shutting down of traffic coming from either side.
The accident happened at the outskirts of Konongo. Nobody died,
but traffic was held up for hours. Had it not been for the VIPs
in traffic, it probably would have taken longer.
When asked at the site of the accident, the driver of the truck
said he had brake failure coming down hill. Apparently, the
heavy load in the 40’ container had forced the truck to move
faster downhill, according to the laws of physics. His brakes
and the truck’s horsepower, however, could not control the
speed.
Nobody asked the driver if he understood why heavy loads travel
faster downhill. But I am certain he would not have understood
if asked.
Mr. Joe Gadisu and the law enforcement agencies can see these
types of drivers and the trucks they drive on our roads, abusing
daily the axle limit of the load they can carry.
This time, it took the instance of a number of Ghanaian drivers,
detained at the Burkina Faso border for infraction or
“non-compliance to the axle load policy” for our transportation
minister to react.
What the Burkina Faso incidence tells us is that at least common
sense prevailed up there. Before that, the detained drivers had
free range of travel - for some 300 miles on the Ghana side.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher
www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, May 9, 2009
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com
. Or don't publish at all.
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